


Episode Two : The Haunting of Allura de Altea

by Cloudedskiez



Series: The Unsolved Mystery of Lance McClain and Keith Kogane [2]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Buzzfeed Unsolved Fusion, BECAUSE MEN AND WOMEN CAN BE FRIENDS OK, Cryptid Hunter Keith (Voltron), Demon Lance (Voltron), Demon Sendak (Voltron), Elf Allura (Voltron), Jealous Keith (Voltron), Keith thinks Allura and Lance are dating, M/M, Paranormal Investigators, Smitten Lance (Voltron), Witch Allura (Voltron), but they're just friends, i died, i'm me, no beta we die like me, sending Sendak's wretched withering soul bACK TO HELL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:16:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23776729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cloudedskiez/pseuds/Cloudedskiez
Summary: Episode Two of our Klance Buzzfeed Unsolved series is here and BOY is it a long one (18 pages longer than the last one, to be precise)!This time, our boys are answering a house call made by none other than Allura de Altea, Lance's close friend (and another supernatural being).On top of being jealous of their relationship, Keith is getting increasingly suspicious about Lance's true "Human" nature.Will he be able to prove that Lance is a Demon? Will they be able to rid Allura's apartment of whatever unwanted entity resides there? Or will those cases remain... Unsolved.
Relationships: Allura/Lotor (Voltron) - mentioned, Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: The Unsolved Mystery of Lance McClain and Keith Kogane [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1570816
Comments: 16
Kudos: 110





	Episode Two : The Haunting of Allura de Altea

**Author's Note:**

> Am I cheesy? Yes.
> 
> I seem to do a lot of To-Do list pictures recently... fun fact, this work was actually in development long before I started my Siren!Lance fic, so these To-Do lists actually perceived it... despite being posted after lolol.
> 
> Enough said, enjoy the fic!

* * *

_A wolf howling sound effect plays as the sinister and chilling theme music starts. A clap of thunder sounds as the title flashes onto the screen in time with a flash of lightning. It reads:_

_“Buzzfeed_

_UNSOLVED_

_S U P E R N A T U R A L_

_Allura de Altea.”_

_And the Episode begins._

* * *

  
  


“This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved, we once again make a house call as part of our ongoing investigation into the question: are ghosts real?”

Lance shook his head quickly, wiggling his eyebrows.

Keith turned to him, noticing his silence, “Oh, no voice this time?”

He responded by simply smiling mischievously and continuing to shake his head, making Keith chuckle.

“Well, this time around, we are answering the call of Allura de Altea, a popular beauty guru who some of y’all might recognize from Youtube.”

Lance snorted a little at the “y’all” but schooled his face into an innocent expression when Keith glared at him.

“Allura has asked us to help diagnose a haunting that’s terrorized her since 2017,” he continued. “A haunting that has her scared to sleep in her own bed.”

“From guru to boo-ru,” Lance comments, taking a sip of his coffee and then wincing internally. _They won’t notice if I turn this into wine, will they? … Eh, the cameras will probably pick it up._

“Wow, you’ve _truly_ outdone yourself this time,” Keith replied sarcastically. 

“Thank you,” Lance preens, even as he recognizes the lack of sincerity in the other man’s voice. “Also, can I just say, right off the top, I know that when we did our last house call, I sorta took a back seat, I was very respectful--”

“Sure, if you count calling the Demon a brat _respectful--_ ” He stood by that statement, actually. He happened to know the Demon haunting them well, and Ifera, or Pidge as their chosen Human name, was a brat in every sense of the word. 

“Anyway, that’s not happening tonight, baby,” he finishes, flashing the camera finger guns. He was still kind of pissed after what happened last time they had a Demon encounter and didn’t have any patience to deal with another one of those entitled freaks that thought the land of the living _owed_ them something.

“Do you not believe this going into it?” Keith asks, raising an eyebrow.

Hmm… difficult question, Lance knew Allura as well, they were actually pretty good friends, and she would no doubt be watching this footage later, so he didn’t want to offend her accidentally. “I’m sure she believes what she saw--”

“Wow, that’s a classic cop-out if I’ve ever heard one.”

“A little spooky guy in a sheet--”

“I should just get a life-sized Lance doll with a little pull-string with all your famous excuses instead of having these conversations with you.”

…

Lance felt an abrupt heat grow between his legs. _Fucking dammit, why does the universe hate me? I’ve been a good boy, I’ve only killed people who’ve had it coming, I haven’t given this boy the unbeating heart of his enemies (yet), so why does it insist on torturing me with this dialogue?_

“You may as well!” Lance replied, trying his best to keep his composure.

“And I’ll have it say--”

“ _‘It’s the wind!’_ ”

“ _‘I’m sure they believe they saw what they saw’_ , and I’ll just keep pulling the string throughout the ep--”

“ _‘I believe you believe!’_ ” Lance said in a high pitched voice.

Keith blinked, “What did you say?”

“ _I believe you believe!_ ” he said again, higher than last time and rocking slightly.

The other boy burst out in a series of chuckles, “You’re just staring at the corner at the wall,” Keith began to rock as well, imitating Lance, “saying: ‘ _I believe you believe!’_ ”

“Okay, okay,” Lance chuckles. “Let’s get into it.”

.+⛧+.

Now, Lance should _probably_ provide some context now, huh? That’s a thing Humans tend to appreciate. 

So, Allura, what’s the deal with her and how does he know her?

Well, it’s a bit of a long story but he can sum it up pretty well with a flashback.

.+⛧+.

_Lance groaned, stretching his hooves out to rest on the other side of the barn wall. It had been a while since he’s slept in this old place, but he happened to be in town and this site has been abandoned for centuries, all kinds of wildlife reclaiming it now._

_He gently caressed a rare spawn of clover, making sure he didn’t squish it in his sleep. He’s had a couple of plants during his time here on earth, a couple of flowers, a few trees, but he tends to like the succulents more, due to their durable nature._

_Suddenly, he heard the barn door creak open. A beam of light shone through the crack, and a silhouette appeared in the threshold._

_Lance crouched behind a rotting wall, watching the new arrival warily. They had a long blue cape, hemmed with gold trim, and carried a woven basket along with some water and a pair of shears._

**_Armed then. I might be able to catch them off guard if I need to escape._ **

_Gently, the figure leaned down in the grass where he’d spent the night, kneeling before the clover he’d been petting earlier. Then, rather abruptly, the figure stopped and turned their head around to look Lance directly in the eyes._

_“Who are you,” they commanded, their voice echoing with power. However, the only thing Lance could focus on was--_

_“Wow, that’s some fancy-ass accent you’ve got there.”_

_They narrowed their eyebrows, unamused, causing Lance’s smirk to grow._

_“Ah, a Demon then. I see… whatever are you doing out here?” they asked, reaching into their basket._

_Lance eyed the basket warily, but made sure it never showed on his face, “Oh, you know, basking in the sunlight, eating some fruit, sacrificing the souls of the innocent, typical Tuesday morning junk.”_

_“It’s the afternoon, on a Thursday.”_

_He raised an eyebrow, “Is it really? Damn, I came all the way out here for the summer festival and it’s already ended.”_

_The figure rolled their eyes and snipped off one of the clovers. “Hey, uh, whatcha doing over there? You do know those are like, sacred, right?”_

_“Yes, I am aware, that’s exactly why I’m doing this,” they respond._

_Lance sighs and prompts again, “Care to elaborate on that?”_

_They sigh and stand up, dusting off their cloak and storing the snipped clover in their basket. “Well, I could, but then again, why exactly would you care, Demon?”_

_He winced at their tone a little, Demons never exactly kept a good rep, because for every one of them that was decent (like Lance) there were at least 10 that were not (like those motherfuckers from the Galra race)._

_“I dunno, curious? I know they’re going extinct, right? Which sucks, so, I want to make sure that doesn’t happen I guess.”_

_They hum for a bit, considering, and then remove their hood, revealing a gorgeous dark face with ivory hair tucked neatly into a bun. They had distinctive Evlen features, pink marks under their eyes and along their forearms, pointed ears, the circlet on the crown of their head. “My name is Allura de Altea, I’m an Elven witch from the Altean coven. My coven prides itself in species recovery, I too know about the vapid extinction of this plant, so I’m going to start growing it in a controlled environment to rejuvenate its population._

_“Well, that’s… very noble,” Lance responded, to which Allura nodded._

_“It’s also quite useful for protection,” she hummed, “sometimes even used in exorcism.”_

_Lance closed his eyes and groaned, before standing up, “Look, I know when I’m not wanted, yeah? I’ll just go and leave you be.”_

_He stretched languidly and strode over to exit the barn, before turning to look back at her, “Remember, not all Demons are bad people, Allura, maybe we’ll get to know each other better sometime~”_

_She threw a turnip at him that left a bruise on his forehead for weeks. Lance had always suspected that she used her super-strength to hurtle it, Demons did not bruise easily. Nonetheless, she apologized for it, and the two of them actually became pretty great friends._

.+⛧+.

_“In April 2017, Allura de Altea moved into an apartment complex in Los Angeles, California. The complex, a fairly new and nondescript building, doesn’t seem to offer any explanation from the outside as to why strange things and unexplainable things occur within._

_But before we jump into what’s happening in the present, let’s first take a look at the past.”_

.+⛧+.

“I am definitely a believer of the supernatural. Sometimes I wish this wasn’t the case, that I was a skeptic instead--”

“Like Lance.”

_Wow. Lance has certainly made an impression on this boy, hasn’t he?_

“Yes, I suppose so. I believe it has a connection with how I was raised. I remember telling you a bit about how I grew up in a really haunted farmhouse in the middle of nowhere in Georgia, so I’ve basically been experiencing these kinds of things my whole life. Some of which were not so nice, some which were perfectly normal.”

_The ghosts of my ancestors were always nice to see once in a while, the Galra… not so much._

“So, yes, I do believe in ghosts.”

.+⛧+.

_“Allura grew accustomed to the farmhouse hauntings of her youth, quote_ “I feel like I’ve always had some experience, as I am quite in tune with the supernatural. So I feel as though I am used to paranormal happenings coming in pretty frequently.” _end quote._

_This distinction is important to point out due to the fact that it contextualizes Allura’s present experiences. Ghosts have never scared Allura. Their ubiquity throughout Allura’s formative years only normalized their existence, which is why what’s occurring right now is so troubling._

_Because you see, whatever is happening to Allura currently is, quote,_ “The first thing that has ever made me feel scared.”, _end quote.”_

.+⛧+.

**so she is basically—she has**

**a sixth sense is what you’re**

**saying**

**she doesn’t have a Bruce**

**Willis—are we the Bruce**

**Willis in this situation?**

**are we Bruce Willis?**

**are we dead?**

“Are we going there to actually diagnose something? Are we going there to help, to cleanse?” Keith asked him. “Or are we going there to maybe stir the pot a little bit more and leave a disaster behind?”

Lance chuckles evilly, “I do love me a little stirring.”

Keith smiled, “I know you’ve got your little chef hat on. You’re ready to do some stirring.”

He wheezed out a laugh and continued making some stirring motions. “You may even put the spoon in,” Keith reaches into his imaginary pot and pretends to taste, “take a little sip of it.”

Lance mimes eating the delicious soup he’s so viciously stirred, “Mm, not spicy enough!” He makes a splattering noise with his mouth and pretends to squirt hot sauce into the soup, “Ooh~ We’re getting spicy now!”

Keith laughed so hard he started wheezing.

Has Lance mentioned how much he loves Keith’s laugh? No? _Well--_

.+⛧+.

“Why would you come to us if you want to fix it?” Keith asked Allura, honestly.

She laughs out loud, covering her mouth a little. 

“You’ve seen our show, I’m guessing, right?”

“Well, to be quite honest, I called you in because I actually know Lance,” she said, her accent curling the “a” in Lance, making it sound like an “o”, “so I felt a little more comfortable with it, but I suppose there’s also a little part of me that hopes it isn’t real, even though it’s been going on for years and years and years and multiple people have witnessed it.” 

.+⛧+.

_“This brings us to the beginning of Allura’s current haunting._

_In 2017, Allura and her two roommates, Romelle and Luka, moved into their three-bedroom Los Angeles apartment where, quote,_ “Things got spooky pretty fast.” _, end quote. This might be due to Allura always attracting this sort of energy since she was a child. But perhaps one event, in particular, is the catalyst.”_

.+⛧+.

“My Uncle Coran and I used to run a small shop together, he’s still running it now actually, so when I moved in he gave me a gift from there, a little housewarming present if you will. So he gave me, it was more of a gag gift actually, a creepy vintage 100-year-old Ouija board.

“So we took it home, and it was just, sort of, part of our creepy- witch-like if you will- aesthetic.”

.+⛧+.

_“And although it was merely for decoration and never actually used, Allura believes it’s this gift that set off a weird chain of events._

_Quote,_ “It started off small and it felt like things I could write off, seeing shadows move out of the corner of my eye.”, _end quote. And in general, Allura describes an energy that was, quote,_ “Very overwhelmingly bad, seemingly all the time.”, _end quote.”_

.+⛧+.

Well… Lance has definitely heard of this kinda shit before. He thought he fixed it for her, actually. She had called him over one weekend in September to perform a mock exorcism of some kind. 

_I guess it didn’t go well._

“We go to so many locations and people, you can do anything at these locations but they all seem to have a rule. There’s always, ‘ _oh, the one thing you don’t do is bring an Ouija board in here!’_ ” 

“Oh I don’t think--”

_“‘Are you crazy?!’”_ he pauses to chuckle, “It’s a toy!”

Keith smiles, “Well, here’s the thing. I don’t think they’re actually making a commentary on the board itself, I think they’re making a commentary on what the board represents.”

Lance rolls his eyes, and Keith ignores him to continue talking.

“The board represents reaching out.”

He scoffs, “It represents selling toys to children.”

“No, no, no,” Keith laughs, “It represents calling out and inviting maybe negative entities to come into your home.”

“Negative entities?”

“Yeah, you know, like, bad spirits, ” he looks Lance directly in the eye. 

“Demons, maybe.”

Lance hums and takes another sip of coffee.

_Nope, fuck, that still tastes awful,_ he grimaces.

.+⛧+.

_“Allura is also having trouble sleeping, a new experience for someone who normally slept soundly for eight hours every night of her life. Quote,_ “I could barely sleep at night and woke up frequently out of a dead sleep by something I couldn’t see or explain… which I know can be written off by a lot of people.” _, end quote.”_

.+⛧+.

“Me,” Lance said, pointing to himself, internally questioning why Allura never told her about any of this.

“Yes, yes, by you,” Keith said, chuckling. 

He shrugs, letting it go for now, “I do it.” Laughing a little to himself, he starts up again, “Yeah, I was just about to go into my little rant, ‘ _You wrote it off?’_ ”

Keith smiles at the action that accompanies his words, “Is that you sending it?”

“Yup.”

“You didn’t even mail it? You just threw it behind you--”

“I threw it like a little flash.”

“Well, I was just thinking,” Keith says, now fully invested, which makes Lance smile wider, “if you put it in an envelope,” he mimes licking around the seal and closing it, “you put that down--”

Lance copies him, licking wildly around a make-shift envelope, causing Keith to burst out into adorable laughter.

“Oh, yeah, you're licking now,” Keith says, following Lance’s actions. “You’re closing it. Now, put that stamp on it, you gotta make sure you got a stamp on it.”

He mimes picking up a stamp, licking it dramatically before placing it on the “envelope”. 

“That’s how you lick stamps, really?” Keith says, raising his eyebrow. “All right… now you’re taking it to the mailbox, give it a little kiss before you send it off.”

Lance kissed it dramatically with an audible smack of his lips and sent it off, exclaiming, “Hey!”

“Bye, bye!” Keith waved to the imaginary envelope.

.+⛧+.

_“Admittedly, sleep paralysis is the first thing that comes to mind, even to Allura herself.”_

.+⛧+.

“Ultimately, it felt very strange, especially in this timeframe where other very strange things were happening. 

“I was waking up with giant bruises on my legs and I had no account for them.” 

.+⛧+.

_“Bruises aren’t as easy to explain away with sleep paralysis, yet there’s still wiggle room._

_One experience that definitely can’t be explained with sleep paralysis, Allura watching, quote,_ “A heavy drinking glass slowly inch off my counter and shatter on the floor.”, _end quote.”_

.+⛧+.

**she got a video of that?**

**she does not**

**oh**

**what do you just**

**have—well, I guess you**

**would have**

**yeah, who’s got—who’s got a**

**something in their pockets that**

**could possibly record video**

**well, I mean, like—**

“‘ _Yeah, I know something is slowly inching’,_ not a lot of time _, ‘so he’s slowly inching off a table’,_ how could you possibly imagine capturing that?!”

“Well, what if she’s charging her phone in another room?”

_Oh c’mon, Keith. Even you know you’re grasping at straws here._ “Oh, you’re right!” he says sarcastically.

“Well, I will say that if this happened to me, if the glass fell down in my house, the next day I would--”

“You’d have a system trained on that table,” Lance interrupts, smirking.

“I would have 20 static cameras set up on my house at all times, and they could all be remotely operated by a button,” Keith answers seriously before adding, “But not everyone attacks these things with the moxie that I do.”

Lance’s smirk widens at that, “Yeah, you’re an entrepreneurial paranormal investigator.”

Keith smiled wide-eyed at the camera, “I’m insane!”

_And I’m_ insanely _in love with you! Haha… ok, I’ll stop._

.+⛧+.

“So this is the kitchen,” Allura introduced for the viewers and Keith and Lance.

“Great counter space in here,” Keith commented.

Allura smiled, “Thank you!”

“Yeah, I’d kill for this,” Lance said seriously, which made Allura grin at him and Keith look concerned.

“Uhh, how thrilling is it to be in your kitchen, pitch-black with flashlights?” Keith asked.

“I can’t say I’ve ever done it before voluntarily,” Allura answered honestly, “but here we are.”

Keith nodded, “Now you’re going to do it all the time.” 

Then the discussion began. Lance kept a steady hand on the heavy camera he was holding, but then decided against it and set it down in case he needed to go to the Astral Plane for anything. He grabbed a small camera with a flashlight attached instead.

“Hello!” Keith began. “For anything that’s in this room, anything that resides in this building, my name is Keith.”

“I’m Lance,” he said, calmer than usual despite his own earlier claims.

“I’m Allura,” said girl added after a moment, “but you--”

“I would hope you know her,” Keith cuts in.

Allura chuckled, “Yes.” 

“Already.”

“We’re pretty well-acquainted,” she finishes, still chuckling a little.

_Okay, well I’m definitely grilling her about this later._

“We’re guests here, much like you are,” Keith continues. He pauses for a bit before adding, “I’m sure you hate hearing that. You are a guest here.

“I think there’s plenty of people that reside within this home. I think some are nice and some aren’t. And I’m talking to all of them.

“I’m giving you the opportunity to talk to us so if there’s anything you want to say to us, show us a sign you want to communicate. You could say something, you could touch one of us.”

Lance decides to make up for his promise earlier. “Pull my teeth out!” he yells abruptly sending Allura into a laughing fit. 

Keith points to him, sighing, “Or you can do that.

“So here we go, I’m going to give you some time silence right here, and that starts right now.”

There was silence for a moment before Lance broke it, “After this, Allura, this is the part where you learn how truly boring it is to be a ghost hunter.”

Allura started laughing loudly again, effectively ruining the silence they had promised the evil spirits. 

“It’s a lot of waiting,” Keith admitted.

“Here we go!” Lance exclaimed.

“But I find the work fulfilling,” Keith said, right as Lance accidentally hit the strobe button on his flashlight, causing it to blind him repeatedly with shocks of light.

“AH! FUCK!” he said, quickly clicking again to turn off the light while Keith and Allura watched him, laughing. “Okay, sorry about that.” Then he clicked again to turn the light on normally, wincing when it was still aimed at his eyes, “Okay, okay.”

“Having some trouble with your flashlight?” Keith asked, no sympathy in his voice and a shit-eating grin on his face.

“I’m doing great,” Lance grumbled in response while Allura giggled.

While Lance got the light working again, Keith went behind Allura and looked in her cupboards.

“Um, excuse me, what do you think you’re doing?” Allura asked, teasingly.

“Just looking for a nice glass as an offering,” Keith responded, picking a white ceramic mug and setting it down on the counter.

Lance smirked, throwing out all brain to mouth filter, “Smash it over his head!”

“Well,” Keith smiled, “I was going to say slide it off that counter.”

“Yeah, or just slide it off the counter,” Lance said, shrugging.

“Either one would be pretty incredible, this counter is pretty levelled.”

“Showtime!” Lance said after a moment, making eye contact with Allura and winking before sinking into the Astral Plane.

Allura noticed how Lance’s posture slumped a little and moved to stand closer to him, in case he fell over or was called on.

“And if you think by not doing anything, you’re gonna get rid of us,” Keith says after a minute of silence, “I’ve got some bad news for you, you better get used to this ugly mug ‘cause I’m gonna be here all night long, baby!”

Lance returned to his body, shaking his head and thinking quite the opposite of Keith’s mug. It happened to be a very lovely mug in his humble and absolutely unbiased opinion. However, he isn’t here to compliment Keith, because _that_ would be very out of character. “Yeah, get used to that ugly mug,” he added unnecessarily.

“Get used to seeing these dead, cold eyes peer into your soulless soul,” Keith finished, causing Allura to giggle again. 

Anyway, back to our regular scheduled overthinking.

While Lance had separated from his body and gone into the Astral Plane to dig around, he hadn’t _felt_ any spiritual presence so far, which could mean one of three things:

1\. The entity was out shopping and would return soon.

2\. The entity didn’t exist at all, and Allura was just making up this story to get an excuse to see Lance again, (which was an unlikely option, since they face-timed frequently, and she even came over to his apartment a couple of times for small get-togethers.)

3\. This spirit was actually a high-level Demon and was able to conceal its presence from other Demons and magical creatures.

Now, obviously, Lance favoured some of those options more than others. Unfortunately, he knew which one was most likely the case, and it was neither of those options.

Or _maybe_ he’s thinking about it too hard, who knows. Not him!

_That doesn’t settle my nerves too much…_

Welp. It’s been a while since Lance had verbally expressed his inner shenanigans, so time to let that out again.

He went up to Keith, shining his flashlight into those stunning indigo eyes and said, “Ugh, those are like two rotten little eyeballs!”

Keith batted the camera and flashlight out of his face, then yelped as the hot bulb burned a portion of his fingers, causing Lance and Allura to lapse into a fit of dying laughter.

The raven-haired boy simply grumbled at them from where he was holding his hand under the running water of the sink, saying: “I hate you guys… stupid fucking flashlight… this is why I wear gloves…”

Lance couldn’t bring himself to respond, still wheezing from the effects of his laughter. He also couldn’t bring himself to look through the tears of pure joy that clouded his eyes to see Keith smiling ever so fondly in his direction.

.+⛧+.

_“But while the arrival of the Ouija board is what prompted the odd occurrences, it’s its departure that is perhaps the most unsettling, mainly because shortly after its arrival, the Ouija board vanished without explanation._

_It wasn’t until three months later that Allura finally found it neatly tucked under three stacked moving bins.”_

.+⛧+.

“Is it possible that one of your roommates could have hidden it and lied to you?” Keith asked, and then quickly followed up with, “Are either of them, liars?”

Allura laughed for a bit before answering, “Well, they might be watching this now, so I don’t think they would have done anything like that. Luka is very firm about keeping to herself, and she doesn’t ever usually touch any of our things without permission or letting us know, and Romelle is a _terrible_ liar, and also very clumsy, so I doubt she would have been able to pull off something like that.” 

Keith chuckled, “Wow, I thought you _weren’t_ going to throw them under the bus after you stating they might be watching.”

“Well, it’s my own way of saying that I love them,” Allura answered with a smile, giggling a little.

.+⛧+.

_“While the board’s disappearance and reappearance would remain a question in Allura’s mind, one question became clearer:_

_If the Ouija board did introduce an entity into her home, what are the entity’s intentions?_

_One night, while doing her hair in her bathroom, Allura heard, quote,_ “A bizarre growling sound over my shoulder.”, _end quote. And another night, she came home to find her bathroom completely flooded, narrowly missing a hairdryer plugged into the wall.”_

.+⛧+.

Keith asked Allura to respond with her thoughts on the noise she heard. “I couldn’t explain it by any accounts. No TV was on, my roommate Luka was in her room with headphones on, Romelle was in the living room playing with our cat. I had never heard anything like it in my life and it almost sounded like it was speaking in a language I didn’t recognize.”

Keith frowned, and asked: “How did it make you feel?”

“Really, really uncomfortable,” she answered seriously.

.+⛧+.

Lance trained the camera on Allura brushing her dark brown hair in the pitch black of the bathroom with the night-vision camera. After a bit, he laughed nervously, “It feels weird to make Allura stand in the bathroom and brush her hair while we sit here on the bed with flashlights pointed at our faces.” Halfway through his sentence, Allura started laughing, and Keith let out a couple of cute little chuckles from beside him as well, each movement making his thighs nudge up against his.

“Hey, look, buddy,” _Ouch,_ “I acknowledge--”

“Staring!” he said, interrupting Keith.

“It’s going to be strange,” the other boy continued.

“Oh.”

Keith shrugged, “But you know what? If you wanna catch that sweet-sweet evidence, you gotta do what you gotta do.”

Lance chuckled, “You’re right, I get you! I know what you mean.”

“Sometimes, you’re gonna have to play a funny little tune,” he then finished, cryptically.

“Yeah,” Lance finished lamely, trying and failing to conceal his snickers. “Anyway, continue,” he motioned to Allura. Then he pitched his voice deeper into a creepier, “Continue to brush…” which sent Allura into another fit of giggles. “You are very giggly today, what’s up with that?” he asked suddenly.

Allura paused to answer, “I’m not sure actually, nerves I suppose. That, and I ate some weird fruit from a basket my Uncle Coran brought us that he purchased in some foreign country.”

“Weird fruit?” Keith whispered to himself.

Lance smiled, “Ahh, Coran Coran the gorgeous man. I love that old coot, what country did he visit this time?”

Allura considered for a moment before confidently saying: “Arusia.”

Keith raised an eyebrow, “That’s… not a country.”

“It is for my Uncle!” Allura retorted, which made Keith’s eyebrows scrunch up adorably in the way that made Lance want to press his finger between them to smooth out the wrinkle. Instead, he merely shrugged when Keith looked at him.

“Arusia, huh? Yeah, that’ll do it. Anyway, investigation, ghost, spooky scary, right?” Lance prompted.

“Yeah,” Keith answered, only half paying attention, so Lance decided to pick up the slack himself using bits of information he’d collected from his eavesdropping.

See? It _was_ useful for something!

“And this growl,” he started, “was it animalistic or was it more of like a purr?” he asked, demonstrating the purr.

Allura bit her lip a little and continued brushing, “The growl sounded like mumbling really deep over my shoulder.”

Lance’s eyes widened, as did Keith’s, “Oh, that’s creepy!”

She nodded, continuing, “It was just really deep and guttural. I couldn’t hear it very well or anything.”

“That sounds… Demonic,” Lance responded, now dreading option number three even more as the reality of the situation set in.

Don’t get him wrong, he’s not a weak Demon by any means, but this Demon sounds powerful and sinister in a way that only leads to the worst kind of combinations. He knew a couple of Demons like that back when he was still residing in Hell, and they were _not_ happy campers. They were more violent campers, like the kind of camper that would go around stabbing squirrels with pointy sticks and using their blood to write ritual summons on their skin before roasting them on the campfire and eating them whole, then using the bones to make stronger weapons to start the process all over again until they are eventually able to summon a Se'irim.

… He doesn’t know exactly how camping works, alright? Leave him alone. 

“I mean, yeah,” Allura answered.

Lance collapsed on the bed and sighed, _This is going to be a long fucking night._

.+⛧+.

_“This experience prompted her to ask for advice from followers and pray over the space. Luckily, for the most part, the experience had stopped, all was well. But due to life circumstances, Allura and her roommates, unfortunately, had to move to a different unit within the building._

_Shortly after, the experiences started again._

_Also worth mentioning, the tenant that moved into their old unit eventually moved out due to strange occurrences.”_

.+⛧+.

“What I do think is interesting,” Allura began, “is while I’m a few floors down, I’m in the same location as my previous apartment. So I’m literally just like--”

Keith’s eyebrows raised, “So, vertically, you’re--”

“Yes.”

“I see, okay.”

“Just a little bit off to the left,” she corrected, making motions with her hands.

“Hmm, so it could go down to the actual ground itself…” Keith pondered, a hand on his chin.

Allura nodded, “I suppose so, yes.”

.+⛧+.

_“But while that tenant fled her new digs, Allura was unable to flee from hers, and the activity only worsened._

_Her roommate, Luka, would hear voices when nobody was home. Things would go missing and randomly reappear and her roommate Romelle’s cat would hiss at Allura’s side of the apartment when Allura wasn’t home, seemingly at nothing but air.”_

.+⛧+.

Fuck. Okay.

So, it’s no mystery that Humans are basically children when it comes to knowledge surrounding the supernatural. Sure, some people can hit the nail on the head occasionally but that is a super rare occurrence and _usually_ overlooked. One thing most of them got right, though, was how sensitive a good majority of animals can be to spiritual energies. Part of the reason for this is the “Familiar’s gene”, which is a dominant gene that allows this trait to be passed on. This gene makes it so that not only will an animal be sensitive to spiritual energies, but have the capabilities of being tamed and made into a magic-user’s familiar. They will also be able to handle a lot more energy in comparison to animals of the same species without the Familiar’s gene

Now, this gene has some exceptions. Usually, it is not passed down to any aquatic fish or mammals, although there is always the rare exception. It is most common in phylum Chordata, more specifically avians, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, etc. Some insects are also able to carry this gene as well.

Allura hasn’t told him much about her roommates, other than that they were both Elvan as well, and actively practicing magic. They all belonged to a class of witch called Alteans who specialize in manipulating life energy or “quintessence” and using it for primarily healing based practices. They were not to be confused with the other quintessence-based witch class: Druids, as those witches specialized more in using quintessence to modify and fuel experimentation on living creatures, often to make them more powerful or useful. All three women were a part of an ancient coven called _Altea,_ a coven that was almost entirely composed of Altean witches and was started by Allura’s father, Alfor. She had told him that White, the name of Romelle’s cat, worked as a familiar for all of them, although she was specifically attached to Romelle.

So Romelle’s familiar being able to sense some sort of spiritual presence here definitely pointed towards the third option and honestly… Lance was kind of dreading which one of those Demons he’d have to exterminate. There was no way he was getting around it either, they were obviously hostile and able to transcend the normal spiritual realm of movement by interacting with outside objects and people, so the chance that Lance might have to risk a limb killing this thing was looking to be very high.

But… he can’t really reveal that to Keith now, can he?

“That just sounds like apartment stuff,” he protested, hoping his voice didn’t come out too shaky.

Keith smirked, “You’re never unnerved when you see an animal start looking up?”

“My cat does that all the time.” At him, because he was the only spiritual presence to be found in that house. Also, Blue loves him very much, so she looks up at him for pats and cuddles.

… And food. 

Mostly food. 

“You’re like, ‘ _what are you looking at?’_ ” Keith continued, looking away from him, “And it’s just--”

“Sometimes,” Lance interrupted, “animals just get spooked. My cat started freaking out months ago, months ago,” he said, waving his hand when Keith looked at him skeptically. “We think she just saw a coyote outside or something but for a full day, she was just like,” he looked around wide-eyed to imitate Blue.

They still didn’t know what it was and Lance had to cuddle her all through the night to calm her down. 

Not that he minded. He loved their cuddle time.

“We?” Keith asked.

Lance made a humming sound, “Oh, yeah, Allura was over when it happened, actually.”

He saw Keith frown out of the corner of his eye, but before he could question it, Keith asked, “What if you took something back from one of our shoots?”

“Well, it only happened for a day or so, and then she was normal again,” he defended.

“And then the Demon was like, ‘ _Nah, this guy’s--’_ ”

“‘ _This sucks.’”_

“Yeah!” Keith said, wheezing with laughter. “‘ _No reaction from this audience, tough crowd!’_ ”

Lance ignores the fact that he would rip any intruding Demon’s to shreds if they entered his apartment, “‘ _This guy sucks!’_ ”

“‘ _I’m gonna pack it up_.’”

“‘ _Later!’_ ” Lance finished, flashing a peace sign and causing Keith to laugh again.

.+⛧+.

_“However, the experiences weren’t always unpleasant. Allura’s father, Alfor, passed a couple of years prior, and Allura would sometimes smell his cologne in her apartment. And in times of need, much like all of us do with lost loved ones, Allura would talk to him, quote,_ “Sometimes I’ll talk to my father. Sometimes I ask for help.” _, end quote._

_But unfortunately, when we reach out to the other side, it’s not always the person we intend that walks through the door._

_Quote,_ “One night, I fell asleep watching TV and woke up to someone knocking on the front door. The voice called out, _‘She’s going to come in now, is that okay?’_ I was obviously alarmed and it was so real I thought someone was really at my door. It sounded like a middle-aged woman. It actually sounded kind of soothing. It felt like there were two people there.” _, end quote._

_Regardless of if it was two people or not, whatever it was, it asked for permission to come inside, and Allura, groggy from an impromptu nap, believes, quote,_ “I may have said yes, and that does really scare me. I ran over, but of course, no one was there. Later on, I asked my roommates if they had heard what happened and they responded that they had heard a knocking, but no voice.” _, end quote.”_

.+⛧+.

“So I went, I checked, nobody was there, nobody’s in the hallway. I slowly drift off to sleep that night but I keep waking up feeling as though somebody’s shaking me awake or I just keep hearing the weirdest sounds. It was nothing specific, I just felt really uneasy.”

Keith nodded, following along, “You mentioned your roommates hadn’t heard any voices, right?”

“Yes.”

“Did they mention feeling uneasy at all?”

Allura scratched her chin, “Well, they are rather spiritually in tune as well, so they did mention feeling a bit off, but overall I think, whatever this thing is, is targeting me specifically. If that makes any sense.”

.+⛧+.

_“The following night, Allura came home to find, quote,_ “All of my cabinets wide open, despite my roommates being out that night. I woke up in the middle of the night to Siri on my phone responding to something despite it being silent in the apartment. Even weirder, another night, I woke up to the sound of a deep male voice chanting something in my ear.” _, end quote.”_

.+⛧+.

“This grumbling, deep chanting sound, unlike anything I’ve ever heard in my life. And I bolted up,” she pauses, shivering, “It felt so _nasty_. I smelled, and that’s another thing with this place, you’ll just smell the weirdest stuff. Almost what smelled like campfire smoke. And again it’s like two, three in the morning at this point. Nobody’s up grilling or anything like that.

.+⛧+.

_“Who walked into Allura’s apartment is unclear, but whether they walked in that night at Allura’s invitation or they followed her home from the antique shop, the question may not be who resides in the apartment, but what._

_Allura thinks the voice she heard that night possibly was speaking a different language, and often her apartment smells like something burning. These two things, plus the antagonistic feeling in her apartment all, unfortunately, point to one thing: a Demonic entity.”_

.+⛧+.

_Unfortunate is right, Keith._

.+⛧+.

“Not to drop the Demon word this early on, but I think the idea of anything Demonic really scares me,” Allura admitted.

“Really? Then why are you friends with...” Keith trailed off.

“With...?” Allura prompted.

He shook his head, “Nevermind.”

.+⛧+.

“All right, ghouls,” Lance started with a smirk, “Now, we’re really gonna party.”

“This may be loud,” Keith warned as he took out the Spirit Box. As soon as the static noises started, Lance felt something cold brush against his neck. Keith continued, “If you can say any of our names back to us to establish a baseline of communication, that would be great.”

Lance snickered slightly at the words, which earned him a glare from Keith. “Once again, my name is Keith.”

“Lance,” he piped up.

“Allura,” she added.

“Please say any of our names if you wanna communicate with us.”

The static of the Spirit Box spiked, demonstrating an increase in Spiritual energy. Sure, enough, Lance felt some kind of presence with them, one he hadn’t sensed before. His marks burned, unfortunately confirming his suspicions. He looked over at Allura with what he thought was a subtle glance, she met his gaze and nodded slightly, notifying that she had felt that change as well.

Keith, as per usual, remained oblivious. But something told Lance that wouldn’t be the case for long. 

“Can you say your name?” Keith prompted after a moment.

No response, of course. Even low-level Demons knew that a name was the window to the soul and that a summoner bond can be formed easily with just that. If the Demon was smart, it wouldn’t say it, unless it wanted to be subject to an eternity of potential slavery.

It had happened to Lance once, kind of humiliating, he wouldn’t recommend it personally.

The energy spiked again, setting off a louder round of static. Lance squinted, “What was that?”

_“ALLURA,”_ came the voice from the Spirit Box.

Now, normally when trying to establish communication, Lance would lend some of his energy to assist the spirit who wanted to talk. Today? Not really feeling up for that. If this thing really _was_ a Demon, (which it probably was, given all the evidence), he _definitely_ didn’t want to feed it. _Especially_ if it was strong enough to speak through the Spirit Box all on its own.

Keith spoke first, “We’ll have to play that back, but it really sounded like ‘Allura.’”

“It did a little,” Lance admitted, holding eye contact with Allura. She squinted and shifted on her feet, clearly uncomfortable. 

“Why are you here?” Keith asked. 

_“ALLURA,”_ the Spirit Box answered, causing Keith to look down at it.

Lance closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them, Allura met his gaze again with a concerned look.

_Why are you looking at me like that? I should be concerned about_ you.

The Spirit Box spiked again, and this time, he involuntarily let out a full-body shiver, noticing Allura did too out of the corner of his eye.

Keith looked at Lance, “Maybe that was that?”

_Oh, I doubt that..._ Lance thought, just as the Spirit Box said _“KEITH.”_

Fuck.

Lance and Allura shared another look, while Keith just asked, “I’m gonna need--”

Thankfully, Allura cut him off before he finished his stupid question, “Did it say Keith?”

Keith shook his head, “I’m not sure... I’m gonna need to hear more than one word for me to think there’s anything in here.”

_Okay, nope, we’re not doing that._ He reached up to scratch his nose, subtly murmuring an incantation that disabled any further connections with the Spirit Box. Admittedly, he felt kind of bad for sabotaging Keith’s investigation, but right now the best course of action would be figuring out a plan of action with Allura for how they were going to get rid of this thing without Keith catching on, or getting harmed. 

“Was there a Demon here?” he asked, not expecting an answer, which he was glad to not receive.

After a few more seconds, Keith turned off the Spirit Box, and Allura and Lance let out a collective sigh of relief, locking eyes again afterward. 

_This will be one hell of a pain in the ass to deal with._

.+⛧+.

_“When researching the house, I found that the building was once a lumberyard, and eventually a supply store. However, why would this building have a Demonic infestation?”_

.+⛧+.

While Keith set up in Allura’s bedroom, Lance took a moment to question Allura. 

“So, any clue who’s here?”

Allura scowled, “Obviously. I mean, it wasn’t hard to figure out once the clues started adding up. The Demon’s name is Sendak and he’s been summoned by a Witch named Haggar- you know her as Honerva- who’s part of the Dibazzal coven.”

Lance blinked in surprise, “That’s… a lot of information. How did you come to that conclusion?”

She sighed, leaning back against the couch, “Well, after I broke up with my boyfriend, Lotor--”

“Woah, woah, woah, _what?!_ When was I supposed to know about this?” Lance hissed, trying to keep his voice down.

She rolled her eyes without malice, “Oh, relax, Lance. It was a relatively new development. Just before I moved into this apartment. I do regret not being able to tell you about it though, but I’ve been very busy taking over the coven.”

He sighed, “Yeah, right, sorry. I’m uh, sorry to hear about your relationship.”

Allura smiled, “Oh, don’t be silly, Lance. It was mutual of course, we realized we’d be better off as friends. We still keep in touch, actually. He told me he’s thinking of starting a new coven pretty soon, one separate from Dibazzal.”

“Okay, okay, slow down. Lotor was a part of Dibazzal’s coven?” he asked, incredulous.

“Yes, which is why his mother, Honerva, came over here and summoned Sendak as revenge.”

He furrowed his brows, “Revenge?”

She nodded, smiling sadly, “Unfortunately, our relationship was the only barrier keeping the Dibazzal coven at bay. Now that we’ve ended things, even on good terms, and Lotor is working on starting another coven, Haggar still considers it a broken alliance, and is thus punishing me for it.” 

“Allura…” he trailed off, pulling her into a hug, “I’m so sorry, that fucking sucks.”

Allura giggled, hugging him back, “It does, but it’s going to be alright.” She pulled away from the hug and stood up, “I’ve already run some tests, this Demon will be a bit of a pain to deal with, but nothing we’ve never tackled before.”

He smirked, “Just like the old days, eh?”

She smiled back, a determined glint in her eyes, “Exactly.”

Then, Keith cleared his throat awkwardly from the doorway. When the two turned to look at him he said, “We’re all set up in here.”

Lance smirked, “Let’s get this party started, Mullet!”

Keith smiled back, shaking his head. Allura giggled and followed them in.

“So, what we have here are two flashlights,” Keith started once they were all inside, “very easy to turn on and off. All you really have to do is tap them.”

One of the flashlights started dimly flickering, which Allura and Keith noticed. 

“Like that?” Allura asked.

Keith nodded, “Yes, like that.”

“Turn it off,” Lance asked, to which the Demon did not. 

After a moment, Keith started speaking again, “Now, if you could turn off the one--”

The flashlight on the right turned off. Keith rolled his eyes, “You gotta wait here.” The light turned back on. “Thank you,” Keith responded.

_Oh, Keith, you do_ not _wanna be thanking this guy just yet._

“Well, it works,” Lance murmured. “Whoop-de-doo.”

Keith snickered before composing himself, “If you could turn both of those lights off in five, four, three, two, one, lights off!”

The lights did not turn off.

Lance hummed and said, “All right! I think everything’s good here!” causing Keith and Allura to burst out into laughter.

He smiled, continuing, “‘Lura, you’re all set!”

When they had calmed down (again) Keith continued, “How about turning the one--”

Suddenly, the flashlight on the right turned off.

Lance frowned, “Turn that back on, please. Turn--”

The flashlight turned on.

Allura placed her hands over her mouth, “Oh my goodness.”

Keith exchanged a look with Lance. “If you could turn this one off right now,” he said, hand hovering over the left flashlight. 

The right one turned off again.

Lance’s frown intensified with a realization, _This motherfucker is trolling us!_

“Please turn that back on, thank you,” he growled out.

Again, the flashlight turned back on.

Keith, clearly as fed up as Lance at this point, started to bargain, “I’ll tell you what. Clearly, you’re not amused right now, so we’re going to leave and when we come back, it's gonna be just one of us at a time.”

Allura- clearly shocked at this new development- looked at Keith, wide-eyed.

Ignoring her, he continued, “You like that?”

_No, Keith, I don’t like this at all._ _Buuuuut, I’ve gotta play along anyway._

“Huh?” he added gruffly.

“You wanna play?” Keith asked with a smirk.

“HUH?!”

_This is a horrible idea._

.+⛧+.

_“Demon’s prey on vulnerability and nothing is more vulnerable than a person alone. So to simulate that, we’ll finish off our investigation by investigating the apartment individually.”_

.+⛧+.

When Keith relayed his plan to them, Allura and Lance immediately reacted negatively.

Allura was more polite about it, “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Keith? Maybe it’s best we stick together.”

Lance was not so polite, “Are you out of your mind, Keith?! Has the Demon possessed you already?” then he gasped dramatically, “Has your evil Mullet finally taken over your brain?! Are you even still in there, Keith? KEITH, CAN YOU HEAR ME?!” 

Keith flushed in anger, “SHUT UP ABOUT MY MULLET ALREADY!” Then, he composed himself by clearing his throat, “Uh, yes, I do actually think this is the best move for us. If we wanna get a reaction out of this guy, it's best to play into its wants.”

Finally, Allura sighed, “Well, if that’s what you think is best.”

Lance’s eyes widened, “Are you serious? You’re really siding with this guy?”

She frowned, “There are no sides, Lance. We’re all trying to work together. Besides, we’ll be right outside the door if anything happens to warrant assistance.”

He grumbled, “Okay, but I still don’t like it.”

Keith smiled and clapped him on the back, “Great! Because you’re going first.”

Sniffing dramatically he said, “I hate this fucking family.”

Allura and Keith just chuckled good-naturedly and gave him a list of questions/tasks written on a pretty piece of notebook paper that definitely belonged to Allura to complete inside the apartment. It looked like this:

_Awww, how cute._

_I am going to follow none of these._

_But I_ will _keep this list!_

_…_

_Is that creepy?_

_...Probably_

_I don’t care._

Lance entered the apartment, checklist safely tucked into his pocket. “All right, ghosts,” he sighed, already running through his own Demon-proof checklist.

It went like this (for comedic purposes, the pretty to-do list format will be repurposed):

He sighs again, “Gonna level with you, I don’t think there are any Demons here…”

The hair on the back of his neck stands up. “... ‘cause I have danced with a lot of Demons in my day.”

No response, typical. Not like he expected one.

He turns the corner and heads towards Allura’s room, a smirk growing on his face.

_Well… I should at least_ pretend _to follow this list._

“Okay, let’s go check out these flashlights Keith loves so much, we could take a look at ‘em,” he shrugs, “see what they do.”

When he enters the room, he sees one of the flashlights has turned off. Surprisingly, it's the one on the left this time.

_Haha… very funny… dickhead._

“All right now, we’ve got one on and one-off.”

Time to stir.

“If there is a presence here and it despises me,” Lance begins, raising his voice, “turn that left flashlight on and the right flashlight off.”

He smiles sweetly, an evil glint in his eyes, “You’ve got 10 seconds.”

“10,

9,

8,

7,

6,

5,

4,

3,

2,

1.”

Nothing happens.

He raises an eyebrow, “You didn’t do it.”

One light dimmed before turning off completely. “Okay, well you’ve got one--”

The other flashlight turned on.

_Nice._

“Oh, you know what?” he says, feigning offence. He pauses before nodding patronizingly, “Not bad, not bad.”

_But I_ know _you can do better._

.+⛧+.

Meanwhile, Allura and Keith were waiting patiently outside. Allura decided to take this time to judge Keith’s character.

_I must make sure he is a suitable partner for Lance, after all._

Then, Keith cleared his throat and asked seriously, “You ever try to take the lid off of a pickle jar?

Allura smiled, a bit confused, and nodded, “Yes.”

“It’s really hard,” Keith continued, “and when you can’t do it? Takes a couple of twists, you hand it to someone, like, ‘ _hey can you take this off?’_ And they’re like, ‘ _let me try’,_ and then you hand it to someone else, and they’re like, ‘ _here let me try--.’_ ”

She continued smiling politely and nodding, even though she had no idea what the everloving quiznak this boy was yammering about.

“--What if me and Lance are loosening up the metaphorical lid of this pickle jar and when you get in, it’s gonna pop right off?”

Trying not to look into the insanity of this metaphor she responded, “And the pickles will just fly out?”

Keith nodded again, solemnly, “And you’re gonna have pickle juice all over the place.”

Allura merely nodded, trying desperately to keep in her laughter.

_Oh, this boy is perfect for Lance._

.+⛧+.

“Can you turn both of the flashlights off if you are inhuman,” Lance started, not taking things very seriously but still wanting to give Keith _some_ type of evidence to work with before he started fucking things up, “if there’s some sort of Demonic spirit here that wants me dead or wants to bring me harm.”

He shrugs, smirking devilishly and winking, “I’ll take you home with me, I don’t care.”

Immediately, the single flashlight that had remained on turned off.

“Great, so we got both of them off,” and _just_ to piss off the Demon a little more he added, “So maybe a Demon here. Maybe!”

Walking out of the bedroom he muttered, “I don’t think there’s a Demon in here.”

Suddenly, the air went cold.

.+⛧+.

“Yeah, I think we’re gonna have the flashlight set up for you, you’re gonna be able to use flashlights to communicate with it,” Keith said, outlining the process of an individual investigation to Allura.

“Okay,” she replied, nodding.

“And then maybe I’ll just explore the space, you know, _‘assert my dominance’_ as Lance likes to say,” he continued, chuckling a little and smiling wider at the mention of Lance.

_Hmm,_ Allura smiled, _Interesting._

“You’ll walk through and make it known that you’re in charge,” she said, indulging in Keith’s imagination.

Keith laughed loudly, “I’m gonna pee all over your furniture, and mark my territory.”

Allura joined him, laughing too. She had to admit, it was fun to take off the stress of her Demon invasion with a little bit of humour. Although she hadn’t expected Keith to be the one to do so, perhaps Lance was rubbing off on him more than she’d thought.

.+⛧+.

Lance stood alone in the kitchen, face to face with what was quite possibly the ugliest mug he’d ever seen on a Demon and- believe him- he’d seen a _lot_ of ugly Demons.

It was a giant, purple, and fluffy, although somehow that last part didn’t make it any less threatening. It stood at a whopping 8’9 feet (266.7 cm), which was taller than Lance (7’1 feet or 215.9 cm) and _much_ taller than this Human form (5’7 feet or 170.2 cm). All that measuring aside you can imagine how fucking _terrified_ Lance was at the sheer height difference, never mind the _muscle_ this guy was packing. His biceps looked like they could be the size of Lance’s entire head, horns included! He was _much_ bigger than the other Galra Lance had the displeasure of meeting (aside from Lotor, dude was a _saint_ compared to them). 

When it snarled it sent a nauseating hot breath directly into Lances nostrils which immediately made him want to hurl. It was like someone took hot garbage, poured it over a dead skunk, and then left it out in the Arizona desert for a month. Sharp teeth adorned his mouth, clearly a predatory trait. One of his eyes was cybernetic, and barely covered the huge scar that sat in place behind it. Another robotic trait was his arm, a hulking mass of metal that connected at the shoulder and floated in thin air using a strangely sinister glowing ball of purple energy. The claws on the prosthetic- if it could even be called that- were massive, not unlike the creature itself, and twitched with the intention to harm. A single glowing yellow eye was narrowed in Lances direction, and features no pupil, much like the rest of the Galra breeds.

So, Allura was right, they would be pretty evenly matched. The image of Sendak was almost comedic, the huge grizzly Demon standing in the middle of a quaintly modern kitchen. He almost laughed out loud imagining Sendak doing all of those menial tasks mentioned before. Merely thinking of one of those gigantic claws meticulously moving a single glass off of the countertop like some sort of disobedient cat was nearly too much to bear.

Suddenly, he didn’t feel so afraid anymore. Sendak was just one big stupid kitty cat and Lance couldn’t wait to send him back to the pound.

He smirked, looking the beast directly in the eye, “Demon, now is your opportunity to enter my soul.”

Sendak frowned and Lance’s smirk grew. It was common knowledge that Demons did not _have_ souls and- even if they did- it would be impossible for another Demon to take a hold of them.

But fuck if it wasn’t hilarious to pretend. Holding up the camera with one hand and reaching into his pocket to pull out his phone he said, “Gonna put 15 seconds on the clock here... and here we go!”

Finally setting a timer, with the most annoying alarm possible, he placed the phone on the counter between them, taunting. He innocently scanned the apartment, looking everywhere but Sendak (which was hard to do, mind you, given the aforementioned size of this lad).

Then, to sweeten the deal, he mimicked a traditional exorcist-style possession, rolling his eyes into the back of his head and moving his head around like he was having a seizure for a full 15 glorious seconds.

Sendak did not look amused.

.+⛧+.

“Are you nervous about being in there alone tonight without your roommates?” Keith asked, oblivious to the encounter that was occurring inside.

Allura, however, was not. What made it worse was that she _knew_ Lance was not going to take Sendak very seriously and she fears that she might have underwhelmed Lance in preparation for their first encounter.

So she answered honestly, “Now? Yes.” 

Keith hummed, “I guess you walking in there alone… isn’t usually preceded by two idiots screaming at something to come kill them for two hours before that.”

“Well, I mean… no,” she chuckled. 

.+⛧+.

After the timer released its horrendous screeching, Lance stopped his mini rave, “All right, that’s it.” He swiped a hand through his hair to correct it, turning away from Sendak, “Times up. You didn’t do it.”

Sendak’s lower right eyelid twitches in irritation and Lance doesn’t make any effort to conceal his smirk.

.+⛧+.

Noting the silence from inside her apartment, Allura decided to add on to her previous comment, “I think the silence almost freaks me out more because I’ve experienced so much in that space.” She sighed, “I hope something will happen on these cameras and not when you guys leave for real and I’m actually left alone.” 

Keith bit his lip, “That would suck.”

“That would really suck,” she agreed.

.+⛧+.

Standing in the middle of the hallway, power posing, Lance announced casually: “So now, I’m going to call upon the power that I’ve accumulated from all the Demons I’ve defeated and I will use it to banish your wretched withering soul _back to hell,_ ” his pacing started up, “Do you hear me? I’m sending you _back to hell!_ ”

After a bit of silence, with Sendak watching him blankly from the living room couch, he admitted, “I don’t really know how that works but I’m just gonna say that I’m doing it…” he shrugs, “and I’m pretty sure that’s gonna be enough!”

A responding slap was heard from across the room as Sendak facepalmed, muttering, _“Why here… why this apartment… why this_ ** _imbecile._ ** _”_

Ignoring him as per usual, Lance continued, “So Alakazam…” a pause for dramatic effect, “a big bang boom!” He slapped the countertop. “Hope you like hell, you loser!”

Sendak merely sighed from the couch. Turning off the camera, Lance finally addressed him, “You know I can’t exactly do much when these things are on, yeah?”

_“I never expected you to,”_ Sendak growled, _“I thought you would at least take this seriously instead of hiding behind that smiling buffoon of a facade like a coward.”_

He rolled his eyes at the insult, “Sticks and Stones, Sonny Boy. When are you going to get some better insults, call me a bitch like a regular ol gentleman.”

Sendak stared into his eyes, _“I will never understand you Lasanelon.”_

“Cool, let’s keep it that way,” he answered, turning at the sound of the door opening. “Hello, come on in.”

Keith walked through the door, unable to see Sendak as he made himself invisible. _Who’s the coward now, kitty?_ “Hello.”

Lance immediately decided to tease Keith, “It’s messed up in here, man.”

His claim was met with a raised brow and a skeptical tone, “Is it? Is it really messed up?”

He nodded mockingly, “Oh yeah, those flashlights are dancing in a way I’ve never seen ‘em dance.”

Keith laughed. “Really?” he said as Allura walked in behind him. “I’m actually starting to get a little bit of butterflies in my stomach. This should be fun.”

_Ah, butterflies in your stomach, not unlike the ones I get when I see you-- No! Bad Lance! No being sappy around the enemy!_

“Are you?” he responded instead, casting a brave look to where Sendak was sitting. He seemed to have disappeared at the moment, missing the small nod the other boy cast in response.

“Adios, friends,” Keith sighed, walking further into the room.

Lance smiled at him while leaving, “Have fun!”

“Bye, good luck!” Allura said, exiting with Lance.

“I’m gonna unscrew that pickle jar for you,” Keith said, directed at Allura. Lance looked at her in confusion.

She laughed, “Thanks, Keith!”

Lance looked back and forth between the two, “What does that mean?” then, his eyes widened in realization, “You guys have inside jokes?!”

Allura nodded nonchalantly, “Oh yeah, we bonded.”

While Keith continued the investigation outside, Lance and Allura took the time to plan.

“Alright,” Allura began after Lance disabled the camera, “So it is fairly obvious that we are working with a pretty high-level Demon here.”

Lance nodded, “Yeah, I had a little bit of a conversation with him. I think I remember him from Hell, not much has changed since then for him I don’t think.”

“Well… I suppose not,” she agreed. “Have you ever faced him in hand-to-hand in combat? Does he have any weaknesses?”

He frowned, “Uh, yeah I have, sorta.”

Allura raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow, “Sorta?” 

“Yeah, I’ve kinda faced him in combat before when the Galra started those arena things, but I never got to like, defeat him because I kept evading him with petty tactics so they kicked me out before he even scratched me.”

“Oh, well that’s… something.”

He snorted, “Yeah, something useless. I did hear a story about his prosthetics though, I think that connector might be a weak spot for him, I just have no idea how to disconnect it without, ya know, wrecking your entire apartment.”

Allura laughed, “Oh, don’t worry about the apartment. Romelle, Luka, and I have multiple reform charms on the apartment, so any damage made is reversed. It really helps reduce the cost of bills as well, since we don’t have to pay for repairs.”

“Okay, so the apartment is indestructible, got it,” he noted. “Maybe I can like, throw him into a wall when it’s reforming so he’ll be captured or something? Then we can perform an exorcism.”

“That’s not a bad idea, I’m just wondering how long we’ll have. Sendak is pretty strong, yes? So he might be able to rip himself out of the wall quite easily.”

“Ugh, you’re right,” Lance said, closing his eyes and resting his head against the back of the bench. “Damn, what did you ever do to Haggar to make her unleash this upon you?”

Allura huffed, “Nothing, she’s just mad she wasn’t able to take over my father’s coven via our _‘alliance’,_ ” she said while making air quotes.

“Man, she’s really butthurt about that, huh?”

“Well it’s no secret that she’s been after the coven for centuries, so I suppose she is _‘butthurt’_ about missing her only window of opportunity.”

He scoffed, “Yeah, too bad her son wasn’t a jackass.”

Allura guffawed, “Oh my goodness, Lance.”

“What?!” he asked, a wide smile on his face while she continued laughing, “It’s true!”

She stopped laughing, but a smile remained on her face, “I suppose the wall idea wouldn’t be too bad, I could assist you by altering the charms or manipulating the concrete to hold steadier.”

“Oh, so it could actually work?” he asked, brow raised in surprise.

“Yes, well… it isn’t an ideal situation, but it’s what we’ve come up with, for now, so I say we stick it out and see how it goes,” then her expression dimmed, “wait a moment, what are we going to do with Keith?”

Lance facepalmed, “Shit, I forgot about him.” 

This time it was Allura’s turn to raise an eyebrow, “You forgot about the man-crush you’ve had for... what, 9 years?”

“Shut up!” he screeched as Allura giggled. “Ugh, I don’t know, we can put him to sleep or something, hallucination maybe?”

“Hmm, I suppose…” Allura trailed off, “Or, we could actually tell him about this world? Finally, let him in on it?”

He felt his eyes widen, _“What?!_ You’re actually condoning that? I thought you were supposed to be all like,” he shifted his human form to resemble Allura’s “ _‘Oh, Lonce, don’t interfere with the balance of the realm! Feeble humans cannot possibly fathom this reality with their tiny brains!’”_

She frowned, crossing her arms, “Stop that right this instant, I would never say that.”

Transforming back he smirked, “I dunno~” 

“Quiet, you,” Allura hissed, smacking him upside the head. “Fine, we won’t reveal this world to him _tonight_. But really, Lance, I think it’s worth the consideration. Perhaps he’d be more willing to accept your courting if he knew who you really were-”

Flustered, he slapped a hand over her mouth, “NOPE! HAHA, NONE OF THAT, THANKS! Let’s focus on the mission, yeah? Cool! Cool cool cool cool cool-”

Allura frowned, “Lance-”

He cut her off again, “Ah bup-bup-bup-bah! No need for that right now, thanks.”

There was a bit of silence before Allura spoke, her voice soft, “You _do_ plan to tell him one day, right?”

“About this world? Yeah, totally I-”

“Lance, you know that’s not what I meant,” Allura said sternly.

Lance swallowed, “No.”

“Lance-”

He waved a hand at her, “I know, I know, I know. Trust me, if I felt like he might return my feelings I would tell him, but I’m kinda getting mixed signals from him right now, so I dunno, might be a while before I tell him.”

She frowned, clearly not happy with the answer, “Yes, but _how_ long, exactly, Lance.”

Lance said nothing. He didn’t have an answer for that. 

“Just make sure that when you tell him, it won’t be too late for both of you.”

He merely nodded, his usual energy gone. Allura sighed, “Lance you know I don’t like seeing you suffer like this, right?”

“I wouldn’t call it suffering,” he mumbled, but quickly shut up with a glare from Allura.

“What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t encourage you to go and sweep your man off his feet, hm?”

He smiled a little at that, “A pretty shitty one.”

“Yes, exactly, so that’s why I do this,” Allura grabbed his hand and held it, looking into his eyes, “I care about you Lance and I want you to be happy.” She squeezed it, “If Keith is what it takes to make you happy, then I say go for it. We certainly aren’t getting any younger, after all.”

Lance snatched back his hand with an offended gasp, “Hey! I resent that, I happen to look as gorgeous as the day I was spawned.”

Allura chuckled, “Of course, silly me, how could I forget?”

He paused for a bit, basking in the silence before saying, “You think if I demanded a seniors discount they would give me one?”

She snorted harshly, “No, believe me, I’ve tried. Apparently my skin is too _‘healthy-looking’_ to apply. Humans can be so…” she struggled for a word briefly before Lance interrupted. 

“Simple?”

“Ugh, yes, thank you,” she sighed before freezing and looking back at him, “oh, no offence to your mate though. He seems to be very interesting, I certainly like him a lot more than the other Humans I’ve encountered.”

Now it was Lance’s turn to snort, “You say _‘encountered’_ like they’re cryptids or something, and don’t worry, I know Keith can be very simple sometimes too.”

Allura rolled her eyes, “Well, aren’t they? Oh, and do tell… I need some blackmail material to hoard over him when I give him the shovel talk.”

Lance practically foamed at the mouth at the thought of blackmail material, but he shook himself out of it when the other half of the sentence registered, “Wait, what do you mean _‘shovel talk’_?”

Allura’s lips pulled up into a devilish grin that made Lance question her true species, “Oh, _nothing~_ ”

_Well, I don’t like that at all._

The timer for Keith’s individual session rang out, causing them to jump a little.

“Oh, times up!” Lance said, reaching to turn it off, “Time to go free Keith from his Demonic playdate.”

The two of them got up and Lance rang the doorbell, hearing a small yelp in surprise from inside the apartment. He grinned and rang it several more times, just to be a nuisance, and smiled innocently when Keith opened it.

“Very funny, very funny,” Keith groaned, looking wholeheartedly unamused with Lance’s impromptu doorbell prank. 

Allura and Lance entered the apartment and Keith handed his camera to Allura, explaining how it worked. Once the short tutorial was over, he started speaking for the camera, “All right, Allura, the time has come.”

Holding the camera in both hands facing her, Allura smiled shakily, “I’m pretty nervous.” 

Lance waved off her concerns nonchalantly, knowing the girl was fully capable of defending herself if worst comes to worst, “You’ll do great.”

“This is the first time I’ve tried to address something specific,” Allura added, which Lance knew was a lie because she does that exact thing every time they have a conversation, but for the sake of her facade, he was going to pretend that was true.

“Well,” Keith chuckles, “we certainly _didn’t_ rile up the room for you.” That was another lie, Lance very much riled up the room if he did say so himself.

“Great!” Allura cheered, sending a teasing look to Lance.

He ignored the look and ran a hand through his hair. “We were very respectful,” he said not-at-all-innocently.

Still smiling and not buying one ounce of his shit, Allura replied, “Phenomenal.”

While they were walking out of the room, Lance turned to Keith and whispered, “Well, I did stir that pot, baby.”

“Bye, guys!” Allura said, signalling to Lance that she had _definitely_ heard about his “pot-stirring”. 

Keith rolled his eyes at Lance and called back to Allura, “See you!”

“I really did stir that pot,” he claimed again.

Quietly, Allura issued one last goodbye before they closed the door behind themselves.

.+⛧+.

Now, unfortunate as it may seem, (and for Lance it truly was), he knew he shouldn’t stay with Keith for the entire period of Allura’s independent “assessment” of her apartment. So he’d just do the standard hijinx, enough to satisfy the video, then mess with the camera and leave Keith to go help Allura get rid of Sendak. 

Which- trust him- was _very_ hard to do when all he usually thought about was how to spend more time with the elusive Keith Kogane without arousing suspicion. He’d been successful so far, but that meant that he wasn’t able to spend as much time with the other boy as he’d so desperately like to. Other than inviting Keith to hangouts (which the boy rarely agreed to) and work he really didn’t have much of an… excuse to hang out with Keith. 

“Pretty rare that I’m out here with you during a solo investigation,” Lance comments, leaning one arm against the wall.

Keith smirks, “You know, any extra time with you... is a punishment,” Lance snorts at that, but Keith ignores him and continues, “and that’s what you’ve given me here today, more face time with you.”

Tragic, isn’t it?

Truly.

_So_ , that means he needs to take advantage of these instances where they are together for work to strengthen their bond so he can start gaining better excuses to hang out with the object of his affections outside of their spooky abandoned job sites.

Lance nudges the smaller boy lightly with a teasing smile, “I mean, you’re having fun aren’t you?”

It doesn’t take long for Keith to let out a small laugh and punch him in the arm, “Yeah, you’re right.”

Understand the dilemma now? Great.

Don’t get him wrong, for as much as he talks, Lance can be all business when needed. Now, for example, is a perfect instance of when he needs to be all business because waiting too long could mean Allura would have her throat ripped out by the monstrous purple bat outta H-E-double hockey stick that was Sendak.

Though Keith isn’t exactly making this job easier on him by being _so goddamn adorable._

See… Keith-

“Oh, you son of a bitch.”

How does Lance put this exactly...

“He can do it! Now, can you slow it down ‘cause I actually don’t know what you’re doing.”

_Doesn’t know how to floss._

Not like, the dental hygiene action that a grand total of 13% of the population _actually_ participates in (10% of which are dentists because they feel like they gotta prove a point somehow). Floss as in the popular dance move, the one that requires no amount of skill or coordination to master and is widespread enough that its common knowledge at this point.

Yeah, apparently Keith doesn’t know two shits about it.

_It’s so fucking adorable it should be illegal, honestly._

Lance continues flossing (don’t ask him how they got here, he doesn’t know either) for Keith, slower on request, while Keith stares at him like he’s just made a whole litter of rabbits disappear… or some other cliche magic trick like that. Something that would surely be more astounding than a stupid dance move. 

Interestingly enough, Lance _has_ actually been a magician before. It was pretty easy given his already supernatural abilities, so he just had to tweak them a bit to become more… family-friendly. Call him a sucker, but he _really_ likes little kids (no, not in that way) so becoming an entertainer was definitely on the list for things he could use to fill his time. Of course, annoying the fuck out of professional magician busters with his “seamless” tricks was a fun bonus as well.

“Do a little over here,” Lance demonstrates, holding his arms still parallel to his sides, “a little over here.”

Keith positions himself like Lance then looks up at him with wide child-like eyes that signal him to continue.

“Out,” he moves, and Keith follows, “back,” Keith repeats the motion again, “in.” Keith doesn’t follow that time.

Frowning, the raven looks at Lance, “Wait, what’d you do with your hand?”

“They’re back,” he says, unsure how to elaborate such a mind-numbingly simple task. However, Keith still looks confused, so he repeats, “They’re back over here.”

Hesitantly, Keith moves his arms into the right position, still frowning adorably. 

“Yeah, now back out,” he’s whispering now, trying to appear more friendly. “Now over here,” he chuckles a little when Keith copies him, “now in!” 

After successfully copying all of the steps, he thinks it’s time to take it to the next level.

“Now fast!” he says at a regular volume, speeding up his motions to the standard speed of the dance move.

Completely lost, Keith decides to Fornite dance instead, which fills Lance with immense disappointment. He frowns, still flossing, “Well, now that’s a different thing.”

While Keith continues Fornite dancing like his life depends on it, Lance tunes back into his surroundings and picks up on some stronger waves of energy from Allura’s apartment. The hairs at the back of his neck prick up, and his marks burn like they never have before, so much so that he ducks his head shallowly and covers his face a bit with his hand, afraid that they might start glowing through his disguise.

Keith notices his intense stare at the apartment and stops dancing, looking to Lance with concern.

  
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Lance says, brushing off Keith’s glance.

Nodding, Keith agrees, “She’s probably fine.”

“She’s fine.”

“She’s probably fine.”

It was unclear to Lance whether or not the reassurance was for Allura or for himself, but he doubted it either way. Allura was powerful, but Sendak?

Well… Sendak is a _whooole_ other ballpark. A ballpark so far away from Allura that it may as well be considered an international ballpark tournament in Allura’s apartment right now.

If it wasn’t already obvious, Lance doesn’t know anything about baseball. Or ballparks for that matter. 

“I did feel a breeze on my face in the bathroom which was… interesting,” Keith comments, leaning against the wall much like Lance had done earlier. “It made me pause for a second, I was like:” Keith gasps in a demonstration, causing Lance to frown unconsciously. 

“That’s the last place you wanna feel a breeze on your face,” he replies, chuckling to divert from his nerves. Keith joins him in nervously chuckling while Lance raises an eyebrow, “Bathroom?”

“What are you--”

“No thanks,” Lance finishes with wide-eyed sarcasm, crossing his arms.

Keith smirks, raising his eyebrow as well, “Are you suggesting that a ghost farted in my face?”

That’s another thing Lance loves about Keith… and his job. The later Keith stays up, the weaker his filter grows, which means the more he’s likely to give into Lance’s shenanigans and even start some himself. 

He shrugs and nods seriously, unable to keep a smile off of his face, “Yeah, that’s what I’m suggesting.”

After a few more minutes of silence, where Lance debates how he’s going to separate himself from Keith without breaking his disguise and just rushing into the apartment to chop off Sendak’s ugly head, Keith’s phone goes off with Allura’s timer and the two of them let out a sigh of relief. They go to open the door and find Allura already in the kitchen, looking panicked.

“Oh my goodness,” she starts, quickly handing off her small camera to Keith.

“What happened?” Keith asks while Lance gives her a little once-over to see if her physical condition is doing alright. He’s relieved to find no visible scarring or bruising, but her hair looks more frizzy than usual, a common reaction to being exposed to Hellish Demon breath. Something which he does _not_ possess, thank you very much.

Allura simply sighs harshly, a little out of breath. Lance winces. _That could mean she already had to fight with Sendak, or at least cast a couple of spells to make sure he didn’t appear on camera._

“You seem… shook,” he puts plainly, looking around the room to confirm the presence- or lack thereof- of their least favourite fuzzy houseguest. He doesn’t see anything, so Sendak must be either contained somewhere thanks to Allura or he hid from Keith. As of right now, he’s _really_ hoping it’s that first option because that would mean the exorcism will be a lot easier than anticipated (also, let’s be real here, no high-level Demon like _Sendak_ actually gives a shit about being seen by Humans. Especially if he knows the camera can’t pick him up if he’s without glamour). 

“Yeah,” Allura admits tiredly, “I’m a little shook.”

Looking at her expectantly, Keith makes a _go on_ motion with his hand, to which Lance almost smacks him because... uh, _rude?_

However, being the great sport that she is, Allura elaborates, “Okay, so… that was really quiznaking weird.” _Oh damn, she said “quiznaking.” Shit’s about to go down._ “It said my name, it said ‘Hey, Allura.’, and I heard it clear as day and it _immediately_ freaked me out. It felt weird, honestly, I’ve never felt… I’m shaking right now. I’ve never come into contact with a spirit so… _potent_ before. 

“After I said ‘what do you want’ it responded, again clear as day, ‘I want you to…’ and something else, but I couldn’t make out the last word…

“It sounded like ‘I want you to drink’” 

“Ah!” _FUCK._

He knows what that means. Allura knows what that means. Keith doesn’t know what that means.

Keith is the luckiest motherfucker on the planet right now.

“Maybe it was just reminding me to hydrate? I’m not sure…” Allura continues nervously. Lance notices her wince from across the room, which confirms to him that she is, in fact, keeping Sendak somewhere, but that she won’t be able to for much longer.

_Time to wrap this shit up._

“Maybe it was asking you out for a drink?” Keith jokes, not-so-subtly glancing at Lance which earns him another concealed glare.

Allura laughs cautiously, sensing the tension that spawned between them, “I don’t know… maybe it’s a friendly… Casper?”

He frowns a little before the name clicks. _Ooh… haha… I wish._ “It did push a drinking glass towards you?”

Well… suddenly the seemingly not-so-sinister act of a glass being pushed has a _whole_ new meaning. 

For context, Druids in the Dibazzal coven would often force their experiments to drink straight quintessence to be able to control their bodies or to speed up their modification processes. However, if their subjects refused to swallow it, they would simply restrain them and inject it directly into their bloodstream. A more common use for this method was “speed healing” which was done to Arena prisoners in order to fully heal their bodies so they were able to fight for longer periods of time without needing to rest. It was also used as a partial measurement to see how much quintessence a particular species was capable of taking.

Even if one species wasn’t able to take that much quintessence, the Druids would modify them so that they _could_. 

Lance shivers at the implications of Sendak asking Allura to drink. _He could have been talking about quintessence, which means that Haggar definitely didn’t just place him in here for a quick revenge prank, she probably has some ulterior motive._

Eventually, Allura continues again, “Then there was another full sentence that sounded like a woman’s voice… and I just freaked out and turned it off. I just… couldn’t do it anymore, sorry.”

_Oh, Allura…_

“Okay well--” Keith starts, but Allura cuts him off unintentionally with another shaky chuckle.

“Sorry, I’m just still so freaked out. I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life...”

“You’ll be fine,” Lance says, tone joking but words completely sincere. Together they’ll get rid of Sendak and finally send his- to quote himself earlier- wretched withering soul back to hell.

Keith nods, completely misunderstanding.

She raises a perfectly manicured eyebrow, “Really? You can just shake the whole comment?”

Lance nods, trying to speed this thing up a little so he and Allura can go take care of Sendak, “I think our job here is done!”

“What? We can’t leave!” Keith argues, “We freaked her out, we riled the place up…”

_Ohh I’m definitely going to hate myself for this later… sorry, Keith._

“I think it feels cleansed to me,” he says, ignoring Keith’s completely true statement. 

“It feels _cleansed?_ ” Allura asks, laughing at the ridiculous statement.

“I feel kinda bad… I’m not gonna lie,” Keith chuckles, scratching the back of his neck with the one hand that isn’t occupied with a camera, “I feel pretty bad, I’m very sorry.” 

Allura melts at that, “It’s okay. I’m gonna… take a bubble bath or something now…”

“Okay, well--”

“A bubble bath?” Lance interrupts enthusiastically, “Lucky duck! What kind?”

Keith narrows his eyes, “Uh, we should probably get going--”

“Just a sec, Mullet. I’m gonna go see what kind of bubble bath ‘Lura has.”

She giggles, “We should plan a spa night again sometime.”

He lights up and gasps, “We _should!_ ”

Now rolling his eyes, Keith starts to gather the equipment, “Okay, well, I’m going to take this stuff to the car. Don’t take too long…”

Lance nods and follows Allura to her bedroom. Then, when they hear Keith close the door, they sigh partially in relief and partially in acceptance for what’s to come.

Shedding her disguise, Allura’s ears grow pointier and her dark brown hair colour melted into shimmering silver. Pink Elven markings sat on her cheekbones and glowed much like Lance’s own. In addition, she blinked her average-looking blue eyes as they swirled and shifted until pink bled into her pupils and the blue was highlighted with a supernatural looking turquoise. Lance admired all Elves for having gorgeous looking eyes, he was kind of jealous as his own were a more solid colour.

He shed his disguise too, noting how Allura kept her Human clothes that he had assumed were part of her glamour. “What’s with the outfit?” he asked.

Allura retrieved a ribbon from her dresser and put her hair up into a bun, “Well… Elves and Humans share very similar body shapes, so I don’t really have to waste the effort in making a whole new outfit for myself every time I want to appear Human.” She quickly snapped in her gemstone earrings, which he had been told were for protection and aided her in casting spells and manipulating quintessence. Once she finished, she turned to Lance and let out a deep breath.

“You okay, Princess?” he asked softly.

She looked down at her feet before turning her gaze back up towards him. He used to lord the height difference over her until she demonstrated her shapeshifting abilities to shoot up to twice as tall as he was. This time, he tried to offer a comforting smile, keeping his mouth closed in an effort to conceal his threatening-looking teeth.

“I think I’ll be alright, but even so… it’s not like I have any time to gather myself,” Allura answered, wincing again as Sendak sapped more of her power, “I used a binding charm on him in the channelling room. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hold it, but I did find a ritual that will successfully exorcise him.” 

They stood there in silence for a minute before Lance held his arms out, “Alright, enough dramatics. Bring it in, Sendak isn’t the only fuzzy bad guy we’ve faced and he’s certainly not gonna be the last.”

Allura chuckled and fell into his embrace, nuzzling the thick deer fur at his neck. “I have faith in both of us, truly, I do. It doesn’t keep me from being a little anxious though…” she admitted.

“Hey now, I’m not claiming to be fearless either,” Lance reassured, “But just think, after all this is done with, we’ll laugh about how one of the most infamous Galra in Hell pushed a teeny-tiny glass off of your counter.”

She laughed at that, breaking out of the hug, “I can’t wait for that day to come.” Taking a deep breath, she met his eyes with steely determination, “Let’s get rid of this quiznaker.”

“Whoop! That’s what I like to hear!” he cheered.

Smirking now, she turned towards her cabinets, “Here’s what we need to do…”

.+⛧+.

Outside the apartment, Keith was anxiously pacing the short walkway and undoubtedly pissing off whatever neighbours they had yet to annoy. But he couldn’t help it.

It had been 15 minutes

_Fifteen._ _One. Five._

Now, Keith is not an expert on bubble baths, but he knows for sure that it doesn’t take _15 fucking minutes_ to check out the label for one.

Suddenly, he stops in his tracks.

_What if Lance is doing some kind of Demon ritual with Allura?_

Keith isn’t _entirely_ sure about Allura and Lance’s history, but he knows they’ve got some kind of relationship. He suspects it isn’t entirely platonic either. In fact, he’s _highly_ suspicious that the two of them might be secretly dating (which would explain why Allura called them over tonight instead of say… a real paranormal investigation team).

Sad as it may be, Keith isn’t at all confident in the Buzzfeed Unsolved channel as a source for definitive paranormal proof.

Unless… he goes into the apartment now and catches Lance in the act of some kind of Demonic ritual. That kind of thing caught on camera would be… well, it would be irrefutable! The very idea gets Keith excited and he rushes down the stairs to the car they took to get here. He snags a camera with a small flashlight attached to it and starts the recording while he travels back up the stairs.

“Evidence piece number 24, today’s date is October 11th, 2019. This is Keith Kogane, collecting evidence against my partner Lance McClain to prove once and for all that he is in fact, a Demon.”

Huffing a little, he reaches Allura’s apartment again, then turns to address the camera, “Today we were at the apartment of Allura de Altea, answering a house call to investigate into a sinister haunting case. Lance and Allura are in there alone right now because Lance claimed to have wanted to see her bubble bath or something.”

Glancing down at his watch, he notes the time, “It has officially been twenty minutes since I’ve left them alone in there. Now, I don’t know much about bubble baths, but I’m sure it doesn’t take that long to check a label for some soap. I believe Lance might be performing a ritual on this apartment and Allura by extension, but the only way to know for sure is to enter.”

He shifts the camera and places one hand on the doorknob, displaying his signature fingerless gloves, “If I don’t come out alive… tell Shiro he sucks and give all of my assets to Kosmo.” He sighs and grips the handle tighter, “Okay… three, two, one!”

The door rushes open to a silent apartment. Well, silent for the moment. A scream one can only describe as Demonic erupts from within, causing Keith to scramble inside and close the door behind him. Briefly, he places a hand on his chest to calm his nervously beating heart before jumping at the sound of another scream. He hastily makes his way through the apartment, eventually coming across an innocent-looking door that he’s certain he didn’t see before, one not unlike the others in the house. Except he’s positive that this is where the screaming is originating from. On top of that, a magenta light is emitting from the cracks in the doorframe, throbbing and pulsating in an unnerving manner.

Taking another deep breath and checking his camera one last time, he quickly opens the door on a particularly piercing scream that sounds more deep and growly than the others. 

Suddenly, he’s face-to-face with a giant glowing crack in the wall on the opposite side to him. The crack is rapidly shrinking, and a gigantic furry bear-like creature is being shoved through it, clearly against its will. He finds out soon enough that the screaming is coming from the creature, it’s giant claws tearing desperately at the wooden floors as it tries to escape the pull. It lets out a final raging roar before it’s shoved completely through the crack and sealed into the pulsating magenta-coloured realm once and for all.

Now that the giant ominous crack is closed, he takes notice of the two other figures in the room. Allura and Lance are… not looking much like Allura and Lance at all. They look like they’ve changed into _very_ elaborate cosplays, except for the fact that when they turn around, their breath hitches and they stare wide-eyed at Keith like they’ve been caught doing something not at all cosplay related.

Lance is… well, there’s no other way to describe it really, he looks like a Demon. A true amalgamation of multiple animal parts coupled with bright blue glowing markings that decorate his body. On top of that, he’s got a lions tail, two sets of eyes, massive floppy rabbit ears and… _is that a snake tongue?_

Everyone appears speechless for a moment before Keith smiles confidently and pumps his fist. 

“I _knew_ it!”

.+⛧+.

_“Two years ago, Allura de Altea was gifted an Ouija board by her Uncle Coran as a housewarming present and got plenty more. Yet another case study into why reaching out to the other side, no matter how innocent, can be dangerous._

_But whether or not something sinister walked through that open gate is up for debate and will for now remain… Unsolved.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Am I a hypocrite for telling y'all to drink water and continue being valid? Yes. Will I continue doing so anyway? Yes.
> 
> In other news, I'm making Shrimp fried rice for my family tonight so... hype.
> 
> UPDATE: WOW THAT DIDN't GO AS PLANNED AT ALL!!! everything was going fine until the rice nation attacked,,,, my dumbass put two cups of uncooked rice into my vegetables and eggs and then I had to boil all of it to actually cook the rice smh,,,, never again :'')


End file.
